November 8, 2018 — At the Our Ocean 2018 conference held last week in Indonesia, the United States pledged its support for 15 initiatives that would affect fishing communities across the globe.

In addition, former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Indonesian Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti during the two-day conference in Bali to reaffirm their nations’ commitment to encourage sustainable fisheries management worldwide.

Kerry, who also served as a conference presenter, commended Indonesia for its role in combating illegal fishing.

“I believe there is big crime committed in relation to [illegal, unreported and unregulated] fishing and this should be addressed by countries around the world,” he said. “To ensure sustainability, one of the ways is to maintain the volume of catch, making sure there is no overfishing.”

Another way the U.S. will work to combat illegal fishing is by working with The Waitt Foundation to hold a February 2019 summit in San Diego, California, U.S.A. with leaders from other countries to identify pilot projects that can be implemented online.

Peter Horn, who heads the Ending Illegal Fishing Project for The Pew Charitable Trusts, said he’s looking forward to the summit.

“We welcome the broadening of the debate of the governance issues behind current levels of Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, and its second and third order consequences,” he told SeafoodSource in an email. “IUU fishing is often seen as purely an environmental crime with any absence of compliance with the rules countering it a management issue rather than what it really is: The tip of an iceberg of criminality which is directly linked to maritime safety and security.”

November 2, 2018 — Global participants in the fifth Our Ocean Conference have pledged the highest amount of funding yet for new initiatives and commitments on the protection of a combined expanse of ocean eight times the size of Alaska.

The event, hosted by the Indonesian government on the island of Bali, generated 287 pledges in bilateral and multilateral agreements between governments, the private sector, civil society organizations, and philanthropic foundations. The pledges were valued at more than $10 billion to protect some 5.4 million square miles of the world’s oceans, according to Luhut Pandjaitan, Indonesia’s coordinating minister for maritime affairs.

To date, the Our Ocean Conference has raked in commitments totaling $28 billion and covering 10.2 million square miles of ocean.

“These numbers are beyond our expectations,” Luhut said in his closing remarks on October 30th. “We are thankful for your collective contributions and making our ocean healthier and (more) sustainable.”

The impacts of illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing and climate change on the world’s oceans were the key focuses during the two-day conference. Data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed that the value of fish captured illegally was about 26 million tons, or up to $23 billion annually. The world’s maritime resources are valued at around $24 trillion.

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“Illegal fishing globally still decimates fisheries at an unsustainable pace,” said former United States Secretary of State John Kerry in his speech on October 29th.

“Illegal fishing continues on an unmitigated, unsustainable pace and almost one-third of the world’s fisheries are still overexploited,” he said. He added that the remainder of fisheries “are either at peak or nearly at peak with more and more people in the middle class, more and more people with money, more and more people demanding fresh fish on their table in their restaurants in their country.”

August 25, 2017 — Ahead of an international conference scheduled next week to discuss rebuilding the Pacific bluefin tuna population, several organizations and influential leaders have urged countries to act quickly to stop what they claim is a steep decline in the species’ numbers.

For years, the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch initiative has urged people to avoid the fish because of its low numbers, but the campaign has picked up steam in advance of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission’s Northern Committee 13th Regular Session in Busan, South Korea, scheduled to begin on Monday, 28 August. Those involved in the week-long talks centered on conservation measures for the Pacific bluefin tuna include the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Japan, with the latter country being the most dominant market for the species.

Among those speaking out included former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who said the current situation not only threatens the ecology but the economy as well.

“Unsustainable fishing isn’t just the enemy of conservation, it’s the enemy of fishermen everywhere,” said Kerry in a statement on the aquarium’s blog. “We know we can do better. That is why we should all be invested in the difficult task of turning things around and getting Pacific bluefin tuna on a path to recovery.”

November 28th, 2016 — Fishing boats used high-tech systems to find vast schools of fish for decades, depleting stocks of some species and leading to the complete collapse of others. Now more than a dozen apps, devices and monitoring systems aimed at tracking unscrupulous vessels and the seafood they catch are being rolled out — high-tech solutions some say could also help prevent labor abuse at sea.

Illegal fishing, which includes catching undersized fish, exceeding quotas and casting nets in protected areas, leads to an estimated $23 billion in annual losses, according to the United Nations. Meanwhile, overfishing close to shore has pushed boats farther out, where there are few laws and even less enforcement to protect workers from abuse. Slavery has been documented in the fishing sectors of more than 50 countries, according to U.S. State Department reports.

Earlier this year, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said using technology at sea could eventually mean “there is not one square mile of ocean where we cannot prosecute and hold people accountable…”

September 28, 2016 — California is embarking on a new effort to shield ocean waters from overfishing.

Law-enforcement officials have embraced a statewide ticketing system aimed at poachers and unwitting anglers who illegally catch bass, yellowtail, lobsters and other types of marine life within these zones, which are commonly called MPAs.

California’s continued push to police its network of underwater state parks comes as government officials and scientific leaders from around the world gathered in Washington, D.C., last week for a conference on a wide range of marine issues, including climate change, pollution and restoring diversity of sea life.

Initially spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, the Our Ocean conference has since drawn commitments to expand or form new preservation zones in sensitive ocean habitats from more than a dozen countries, including Morocco, Thailand and Canada, as well as the European Union and the United Kingdom. Most recently, the Obama administration expanded the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off the coast of Hawaii — now the world’s largest marine protected area.

September 19th, 2016 — A 90-nation conference devoted to the world’s oceans ended Friday with $5.3 billion in pledges for marine conservation, which U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said proves “we are making progress.”

Forty significant new or expanded marine protected areas were created at the Our Ocean summit, including President Barack Obama’s announcement of the first U.S. marine reserve in the Atlantic Ocean — an area totaling 13,000 square kilometers and known for its underwater mountains and canyons off the coast of New England.

Commercial fishing, oil exploration and other activities are limited in such areas to protect ecosystems.

Kerry said in closing remarks Friday that he had been in conversations with Russian officials about Moscow’s consent for a ban on fishing in the 960,000-square-kilometer Ross Sea, a pristine ecosystem in the Antarctic.

“We remain hopeful Russia will step up and join us in this endeavor,” Kerry said.

New technologies to fight pollution

The third Our Ocean event collected pledges of more than $1 billion to combat maritime pollution.

“It’s not just the dollars being brought to the table, but new technologies,” Kerry emphasized.

Five countries also detailed plastic bag bans: Mauritius said it has banned the import, manufacture, sale or supply of non-biodegradable plastic bags. Morocco announced that it has banned the production, import, export or acquisition of plastic shopping bags for sale or distribution. Ghana’s ban covers the manufacture of plastic bags thinner than .02 millimeter, and France informed delegates of its prohibition on all single-use plastic bags thinner than .05 millimeter. Senegal has banned the production and use of plastic bags.

In addition, France announced that it, Morocco and Monaco have launched an international coalition to ban single-use plastic bags.

Not only are the bags especially harmful to marine wildlife, they also litter the seas.

September 16, 2016 — World leaders in ocean conservation and management are gathering in Washington this week for Secretary John Kerry‘s Our Ocean conference — a convening of global policymakers aimed a tackling some of the greatest challenges facing our seas and the wildlife that depend on them. I’m especially excited about this year’s meeting because it will mark the moment when we can truly begin a new era in fisheries management thanks to a groundbreaking new digital tool that will allow governments and citizens around the world to improve management to bring back fishery abundance and strengthen food security.

Early Thursday morning, we made Global Fishing Watch available to the public. Now for the first time ever, anyone with an internet connection can monitor global fishing activity, in near real-time, for free. Oceana partnered with SkyTruth and Google to produce a public platform that uses satellite data, cloud computing and machine learning to identify fishing activity all over the world and provide it to users in an intuitive internet-based interface.

Until today, the only way to really know what fishing vessels were doing was to have eyes physically trained on the ships, or to track vessels one at a time, point-by-point, day by day. That process is now automated by Global Fishing Watch so that anyone can instantly look at the tracks of tens of thousands of vessels, everywhere they fish, at any time over the past five years, within just a few days back from the present. This completely changes the game.

Ships over a certain size are required to use the Automatic Identification System (AIS) to avoid at-sea collisions. This broadcast data is collected by terrestrial and satellite receivers, and Global Fishing Watch analyzes it to locate apparent fishing activity. Now, for the first time, everyone can see where ships are fishing, and when. The applications of this technology to fishery policy and management are numerous. Early testers of Global Fishing Watch have consistently been bringing us new application ideas that even we, the developers, hadn’t imagined.

September 16, 2016 — Millions of people worldwide depend on seafood to survive. An estimated 450 million people get their primary source of food from the ocean, and according to the World Bank, fishing makes up at least 10 percent of the global economy.

But for all its popularity and importance, the seafood industry’s supply chain is notoriously opaque, complex and plagued with problems, including illegal fishing and seafood fraud, which can seriously deplete fish populations and harm marine habitats.

Seafood lovers often have no idea where their fish or shrimp were caught, and even whether or not their snapper was the real McCoy.

Thanks to improved technology, together with the efforts of businesses, nonprofits and governments, however, “ocean-to-table” visibility is fast becoming a reality. And this, experts say, may help save our ailing seas.

September 16, 2016 — “You’re probably wondering why the Navy is up here today,” said Rear Adm. Tim Gallaudet, Oceanographer of the U.S. Navy, who moderated a panel regarding the sustainment of fisheries around the world’s oceans at a conference at the State Department attended by President Barack Obama, Secretary of State John Kerry and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

“We do much to support this [combating illegal unregulated unreported fishing] through the detection and the monitoring of illegal fishing using our very vast maritime domain awareness capabilities and surveillance assets on the sea, in the air and even under the sea,” Gallaudet said. “The Navy is very invested in this area. The whole key is, this will build our regional partnerships and advance collective maritime security.”

The panel was made up of fishery experts from around the world, who examined options that fishery management authorities may use to combat overfishing and mitigate adverse impacts on the broader marine environment.

The panel was part of a two-day conference titled Our Ocean that in addition to discussing sustainable fisheries focused on issues such as marine protected areas, marine pollution and climate-related impacts on the ocean.

Panelists for Fisheries for the Future included Minister of Marine Affairs and Fisheries of the Republic of Indonesia Susi Pudjiastuti, the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development of the Republic of Ghana the Honorable Sherry Ayuttey, investigative reporter for the New York Times Ian Urbana, Director of Global Fisheries and Aquaculture Monterey Bay Aquarium Jennifer Kemmerly and Executive Director for the Community and Biodiversity Association Jorge Torre.

September 15, 2016 — Environmentalists hope a new satellite service that scans the earth’s seas from space in search of illegal fishing activity can act as a watchdog service, holding those who overfish or intrude on protected areas accountable for the adverse effects of their actions.

The Google-powered technology, which has been named Global Fishing Watch, monitors more than 35,000 commercial fishing vessels using public broadcast data and is available to anyone with an internet connection, The Washington Post reported. Such information allows governments, journalists, and citizens to track the movement of boats, making it easier for nations with limited resources to apprehend the fishermen illegally depleting their oceans.

“We have to find a way to enforce [fishing laws],” Secretary of State John Kerry told The Washington Post. “We have to find a way to monitor it. And that’s very difficult in vast oceans with resources that are [limited]. We’re trying to create accountability where there is very little.”